The prime ministership is not terminal – but it needs the right person for the times

Malcolm Turnbull was interviewed late last month on the ABC’s flagship news current affairs program, 7.30. It wasn’t pretty viewing. Turnbull responded to host Leigh Sales’ interrogation through gritted teeth. He tetchily accused her of being “negative”: of only wanting “to talk about politics”. The performance was the antithesis of the Turnbull of old — he of the leather jacket, who revelled in appearing on the national broadcaster, exuding charm and confidently expansive. In his place was a brittle and defensive prime minister.

We cannot know for sure what lies ahead for Turnbull — his boosters still wait expectantly for the green shoots of political recovery. Yet the monotonously negative opinion polls invite the suspicion that the public has given up on the Turnbull government. The Coalition’s divisions over key issues (now the clean energy target) and serial misadventures (such as the dual citizenship imbroglio) do little to instil confidence in Turnbull’s future. Like Tony Abbott, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd before him, he has become another in a line of beleaguered prime ministers.